


Four and a Half Days

by yfere



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: 02e47, Gen, God this is tame. Why am I so tame, M/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-13
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-10-09 10:15:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17405048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yfere/pseuds/yfere
Summary: Caduceus has a hard time reading the book Caleb gifted him





	Four and a Half Days

**Author's Note:**

> This is the fic where I channel my frustrations over particularly difficult textbook/journal readings. Caleb might think a postgraduate-level textbook on a complicated botanical/chemical subject is the Best Thing Ever, but…this is a guy who said he has “read a couple of books.” They were probably children’s and middle grade books, Caleb. Caleb.

The truth was, trying to read Caleb’s gift made Caduceus’ head hurt. Much of the time he didn’t understand all the words on the page, and even when he _did_ understand the words, they…didn’t quite make sense, in that arrangement. Sometimes there were pictures and diagrams, but these were really no better than the dense paragraphs of prose. He’d try to arrange the image on the page into some kind of meaning, a construct—but in the end this turned out much like his failed attempt at playing with the Fun Ball of Tricks. He was stuck.

  
It was late afternoon and his fifteenth time puzzling over a single sentence when Beau stopped by the kitchen where he’d holed up.

  
“Your, uh, your kettle has been screaming for a while,” she said, plopping down next to him in a surprisingly graceful heap of limbs and blue fabric.

  
“Really? I thought it was just me.” With a barely-suppressed sigh, he marked his place and removed the kettle from the galley stove. He’d thoroughly ruined this batch of tea by now, but the stews for the crew were coming along nicely, at least. Just needed a little more oregano…

  
He turned back to find Beau flipping through his book, his marker dropped on the table so that his place was lost. Not that it really mattered, he supposed.

  
“ _Cleistogamous_? The fuck does that mean?”

  
“Honestly, I have no idea. You shouldn’t go through other people’s things without asking, you know.”

  
“Looks boring anyway.” Beau all but tossed the book back at him, favoring him with a critical squint. “Wait. Why wouldn’t you know? Aren’t you like the plant expert? You’re always talking to seaweed and shit—which I think is cool, by the way, but?”

  
“When I was learning about the plants in the forest, my family didn’t use these terms,” Caduceus explained. “It’s—I’m feeling a little embarrassed about it.”

  
“Hm. Wanna see what I’ve been working on?”

  
“Sure,” he said. The dismissal stung. He began pouring her tea from the bad batch.

  
It turned out she was trying to master the cipher Avantika had used in her journal. “It was so hard for other people to decode, I thought it might help us if we could use it amongst ourselves? But it’s super difficult to learn. I’ve been getting Caleb to help tutor me. And you know, since Caleb is the one who gave you that book…”

  
Oh. _Oh_. She was trying to be nice, then. She began to reach for the cup he’d poured, but he waved her off. “There are some powerful mushrooms in this one. You wouldn’t want it.”

  
“I’ve done drugs before with—I don’t mind.” She pulled her hand away regardless, though, with an expression Caduceus would have to think about more later. “I have some conditions,” she said.

  
“To take drugs?”

  
“No. Maybe? _No_. Not the point. I mean, _if_ you’re going to get Caleb to help you out, I still need his help too, you know? So how about, you get half the day, and I get half the day, starting in the morning. Deal?”

  
“Deal.”

  
“I’m first mate, so…I get first dibs.” She stole a sample of his stew, and was out of the room before he could say a word.

  
 _Huh_.

___________

  
Caleb was a difficult person to approach in the best of times. There was something almost too intense about having the wizard’s full attention focused on him that made Caduceus’ stomach twist, his palms sweat in something awfully like panic. Panic wasn’t a feeling Caduceus enjoyed—any emotion veering too far from his preferred state of tranquility was something he generally tried to avoid. Yet—not this. Somehow.

  
It was easier, though, to come to Caleb when there was some specific task or mission that needed to be done. _Please identify these items, please speak with this person, please eat this food, please let me heal you._ The only problem was that Caleb would take off once he was done with whatever it was, and by that time Caduceus inevitably, desperately wanted him to stick around.

  
If he could buy half a day at a time with this book—maybe it was a wonderful gift after all. Good for more than the thought that was put behind it, good for more even then the help it might give him when he went east. _They_ went east.

  
He paused in front of Caleb’s quarters. _Breathe. In—out. It’s fine. You’re fine._

  
Beauregard stepped out, giving him a thumbs up and a heavy punch on the arm. _Breathe._

  
And then—he _was_ fine. The unease ran off of him like water droplets off a leaf in a summer shower. Just in time, too, because when he entered the room Caleb looked about ready to flee.

  
“Herr Clay. Beauregard told me—ah, um. Why don’t you sit down?”

  
Caduceus sat down, back facing the door and close enough to the entryway that he’d be a hindrance to get past. Just in case.

  
It seemed to take a moment for Caleb to collect himself enough to speak. “I have to admit, I’m a little um, embarrassed,” he said. “It’s like with Frumpkin. I am very fond of him and I enjoy his company, you know, and I like for him to be with people, but Fjord is allergic to cats, and sometimes I forget. So, you see, uh, with books, I—er—um—”

  
“Mr. Caleb.” He smiled, because he couldn’t help it, and spoke gently, because he could. “I’m not sure what you’re trying to tell me.”

  
“Right. Right right right.” Caleb scrubbed a hand down his face, and smeared a line of ink down his cheek. His eyes went out of focus for a second, then zeroed in on Caduceus’ with that same strange intensity he was becoming more and more familiar with. It sent a thrill up his spine. “The point is, I have been very thoughtless with you. That book you are holding is not something anyone could have an easy time reading unless they’d taken years to study a very particular kind of alchemy, and a few other subjects. I should have thought to ask—”

  
“I’m going to stop you right there, if that’s all right,” Caduceus said. “I don’t know what Miss Beauregard told you, but it isn’t as bad as all that. You guessed that I’d learned a bit about medicine and herbalism already?”

  
Caleb nodded mutely.

  
“And you were right! I have been finding there’s some things in common with what I know and what’s in here. But there are a lot of differences, too, and if it isn’t too much trouble, I just hoped to speak to you for a while to clear a couple of things up that I read. Is that all right with you?”

  
“I—you are. Very kind,” Caleb said. And it was worrying, this, that Caleb couldn’t seem to take even common courtesy in stride. Worrying and charming. “Of course I will help you, Caduceus Clay. Any time you need.”

  
A warm breezy feeling blew through Caduceus’ chest, something he normally associated with the moments before the Wildmother began speaking to him. But his mind was beautifully quiet. “I’m counting on it.”

__________

  
He learned that Caleb was a good teacher. He had a talent for zeroing in on the essential point of a subject, and the way he spoke was simple and direct and never difficult to understand. Caduceus thought, if Caleb had the inclination, he might rewrite the book he explained and made it a good deal better than it was. It was a little baffling, too—Caduceus thought, if he could manage to absorb all the strange and complicated words in books like the ones Caleb read, he would use them all the time. He liked the feeling of the branches and whorls in his mouth as he said them— _saprophyte, tussock, endemic_ —but there was something beautiful too in the stark bare words Caleb spoke, and the gentle, earthy way he spoke them. He’d startle, occasionally, with an idiom, of the kind Caduceus had only ever heard from mourners who were peasants and farmers. Caduceus wanted to ask about that. He wanted to ask about a lot of things, but he was meant to be asking about the book, so he did that instead.

  
And Caleb was patient. He had to be, to manage to leave Beauregard with a spring in her step every afternoon. He had to be, to give Jester such a genuine smile as she dragged him away to help her with forgeries in the evenings. Caduceus mentioned something about this to Nott, their final evening, after Fjord came in asking for Caleb’s opinion on something and took him away. _I am sorry to leave, but Nott can help you tonight if you have any questions_ , he had said. _She is a very talented alchemist._

  
But Caduceus found he was more interested in asking about things other than alchemy. Especially when Nott mentioned that Caleb was the one who taught her magic.

  
“You mean you didn’t know?” she said, incredulous.

  
“People don’t tell me these things.”

  
“The truth is, I’m a little worried,” she said. “If Caleb’s right and Uk’otoa—”

  
“Uk’otoa.”

  
“—If he really might take away Fjord’s magic if Fjord doesn’t do what he wants, then I’m afraid Caleb might try to start teaching _him_ magic, too. And. I don’t want that.”

  
Caduceus smiled and closed his book. This was definitely a more interesting conversation to have.

“You _are_ a little possessive of him, aren’t you?”

  
“I’m not.” She took his cue and clambered up onto her and Caleb’s bed, flask in hand. “He’s spending more time with the group now. I’m happy! But, it’s fine to want _some_ things to stay between just us, right?”

  
Caduceus felt a pang of something he hoped wasn’t envy. _Shelf that for later._ “Of course. Especially if it’s Fjord, right?”

  
She grimaced around her drink. “It’s probably silly of me to worry. Fjord is as dumb as a rock. He’d never get it. Don’t give me that look! You’re much smarter than he is.”

  
Caduceus laughed. “Well, if Mr. Caleb ever offers to teach me spells, I’ll turn him down, how about that?”

  
“It’s a deal. Better yet, you and I can gang up on Fjord and make _him_ turn down the offer. Without his magic, he’d be helpless! We could threaten to beat him up.”

  
“I’d have to think more about that one.”

  
“Worth a shot,” she said, and drank.

__________

  
Caleb was heading back to his quarters as Caduceus left, the both of them running straight into each other at the main mast.

  
“Ah, I didn’t think to cast light,” Caduceus apologized, helping Caleb up from where he’d sprawled on the deck.

  
“No, no, I’m equally at fault,” Caleb said, patting his coat pocket where the driftglobe lay, checking for cracks. “I was just looking up. Won’t be as easy to see the stars when we are in the city, you know.”

  
Caduceus had been doing the same thing.

  
“I never saw much of them while I was at home, either,” Caduceus admitted, looking up again as Caleb hovered by his side. “The woods are—dense.” Dense and close and a cradling comfort. He liked the ocean in a way, conscious that the Wildmother was just as much of the sea as of the land. But sometimes, looking up like this, he felt untethered, like his heart had been unhooked from his body and sent adrift.

  
Caleb’s shoulder brushed his, and he caught a whiff of incense, of charcoal and damp clay. It helped anchor him, a little.

  
“You meant to learn a bit about navigating by the stars while we were here, _ja_?” Caleb asked quietly.

  
“I don’t think there’s time for that now.”

  
“No, but—perhaps when we are on the road again.”

  
Caduceus looked at the sky, and thought of divination by the stars, destinies, the many pinpricks of light he saw within the dodecehedron. He had a feeling Caleb saw the stars in a very different way—purposeful, more of a tool than a tapestry. He found that he didn’t want to share that perspective.

  
“That’s all right,” he said. “Though, you are a wonderful teacher.”

  
“Well,” Caleb said uncomfortably. Caduceus put a hand on his arm.

  
“You are. And. I’d like it if—” with some startlement, he realized his throat was dry. Caleb’s face was still and strange in the dimness, a crimini with bruises for eyes. “I’d like it if when we’re on land, we’d keep doing this. I enjoy speaking with you.”

  
“I. I enjoy speaking with you as well.”

  
And, maybe it was because he was still thinking of navigation, or because he remembered Fjord’s relieved _I won’t be the captain anymore_ , or because he felt Caleb already pulling away from his hand and needed to change the subject to keep him in place. Maybe it was because he was hoping Caleb would misunderstand him and think he was asking about something else. “Where are we going, do you think?” he asked.

  
“You’ve heard. To Jester’s mother, and then to Felderwin for Nott.”

  
“What about after that?”

  
Caleb flashed him a tiny smile. “Well, Herr Clay, maybe that is up to you.”


End file.
